June 3, 2011

Whoa! That quote was the centerpiece of my blog post linking to the NYT story about Jill Abramson taking over as the new executive editor of the New York Times. I thought it was rich material for contemplation. The new editor grew up idealizing the newspaper, and now she's in control of it. What will happen? Will we get more truth?

I didn't expect such a sharp slap in the face! The first thing that happens is the quote about truth disappears down the memory hole! Not a word about the excision appears at the site.

It may be the most revealing quote ever published in the New York Times.... The Times has of late acted a great deal like a corrupt religious institution. This column has chronicled its often vicious and dishonest attempts--both on the editorial page and in the news sections, which Abramson will head--to shore up its own authority by trying to tear down its competitors....

I was just writing a column for tomorrow. I was going to say something — not worth getting into the context right now — about not belonging to “the Church of the New York Times.”...

Wanting to take a break from writing... I checked the news. I was reading about Jill Abramson, just tabbed to be the new chief editor of the New York Times. I read this: “In my house growing up, The Times substituted for religion. If The Times said it, it was the absolute truth.”

Deleting the quote is so pathetic. Abramson held the newspaper in such high esteem, then takes over, and behaves as if the story announcing her ascent is some sort of accidental tweet to be taken down before anybody sees it. But everybody already saw it! We're in the middle of talking about it! How about contributing to the dialogue? But no, we get coverup. As if the lesson hadn't be learned long ago: It's the coverup that gets you.

The instinct to delete... is that what Abramson would like us to think of as the mark of her leadership?

The Church of the New York Times seems to be one of those shame-based religions.

Of the quote’s removal... Taranto wrote that the editing process was the likely culprit for the quote’s removal, but added: “It's obvious that an editorial decision was made to ‘rectify’ a quote that made the Times look foolish.”

Not so, Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy told POLITICO. “Space was clearly a consideration,” as the story was used in the newspaper, Murphy said, adding that because the original version of the story was online all day, it needed to be freshened for the paper edition, which did not contain the quote.

“The entire story was rewritten after Jill, [publisher] Arthur Sulzberger [and editors] Bill Keller and Dean Baquet addressed the newsroom, swapping out nearly all of their old quotes for fresh quotes that came from their speeches. Everyone’s quotes in the second version of the story differed considerably from their quotes in the first version of the story,” Murphy said.

Murphy said the “religion” quote was on the Times’s webpage for nearly 12 hours before being replaced by the newspaper version. “This is just the revising, updating and condensing for space that happens every day at The Times,” she said.

89 comments:

The scrub is particularly interesting given this from the story: "She stepped aside temporarily from her day-to-day duties as managing editor last year to help run The Times’s online operations, a move she asked to make so she could develop fuller, firsthand experience with the integration of the digital and print staffs."

Having gone heretic from the Church of the NYT decades ago, I see no surprise here. But they used to be more deft at their manipulations. Must be due to the decline in quality of the J-schools, the Nuance/Innuendo professor must have retired.

The reason the religion is centered in Manhattan and college towns is because the core belief is that there is no God given natural order to the universe. The artificial environment of an urban area lends itself to this belief.

In the small towns and rural areas, people see what's actually involved in food production and the manufacture of real things. They are thus less inclined to believe that everything is some sort of artificial construct. Every day they see that there is a God given natural order to the universe.

Blogging about an internet editing scandal and we are the victims of an insider infomation trading scandal.

I mean, Meade's comment on the hacking was excellent, it wins the thread, but it was comment one. We outsiders have concerns that Meade gets to see the posts before they go up. Insider trading (what he gives in return? maybe he poses for pictures holding his junk?) anyway....

You guys, want to just trade posts, do it somewheres else. This is our blog and we want a ten minute rule on Meade. He can say all the bright thinks he wants, but needs to wait 10 minutes or ten posts first :)

As a child she may have perceived it as the absolute truth, but as an adult now she knows the limitations of news, but sadly given the spate of propaganda against the MSM, feels she has to retract that statement. I subscribe to the NYT because it is one of the few organizations in the world with a global presence and I will read reports from Dexter Filkin, now moved on, to get a more fine grained sense of events than is possible from TV news or local papers.

Somewhat on the border of this topic, but a revealing insight to the underlying conflict, this recent post from Fred Reed.

I like his conclusion, which is:

The question becomes: Where is this leading? What does feminization accomplish? What can we expect of a nation run by and for women?

Fewer wars, just possibly. Declining international competitiveness as schools focus on therapy instead of integration of hyperbolic functions. Miserable little boys gagging down totalitarian niceness and Ritalin. Young men who see no point in going to fifth-rate universities rigged against them. And boredom. Oh god, the boredom.

Anthony Weiner's damage control team has come up with a novel new way to intimidate and control media coverage. They've gotten the Capital Police to harass reporters if those reporters show up to his office to get him to answer questions.

CBS News Reporter Marcia Kramer came under intense police harassment and was threatened with arrest yesterday by Weiner's damage control team.

CBS2News:"After Kramer left Weiner’s office, his staff called the Capitol Police. Police officers asked for identification. One cop told Kramer that if she went into Weiner’s office and didn’t leave if she was asked, she could be arrested."

CBS2News:“'If you go to an office and are asked to leave, you can be placed under arrest,' Officer Michael Miller said."

CBS2News:"Kramer responded, 'But I wasn’t refusing to leave.'”

So, it wouldn't surprise me that the New York Times isn't able to send reporters to the office of a sitting Democrat Congressman to request an interview with Anthony Weiner. If they did that, Anthony Weiner's staff would call the Capitol Police and the police would begin official harassment of them, including threatening to arrest them.

The Capitol Police are out of bounds and are verging on illegal harassment of journalists.

They need to stop enabling Rep. Weiners practice and pattern of practicing his mental illness of exhibitionism by sending obscene photographs of his penis to young girls on the internet.

We are living in interesting times for the Times. Maybe they will hire a psychic to channel stories that declare who are the Dragon-Enemies of the People and who are the Saint Georges sent to courageously slay the Dragons. Stories like that worked foe AlGore who founded the Global Weather Controllers Religion. Fine lot of Atheists they are.

My daughter-in-law is an Obama supporter. She only reads the NYT, and whenever I mention something negative about him, she says she never saw that in the Times. She doesn't suspect that she is not getting the full story.

A few years back, there was an NYT Sunday piece about Mt Rainier. The first lines were about what the male writer wore...and it devolved from there. It came from the gay church and it had some facts, but it was arrogant and condescending. I just wanted to read about the mountain.

Hey NY Times: Go out on the beat...assholes. There's news all over that city...plenty of injustice, crime, back room deals, good works, sports teams, Wall St., the same old stuff. Keep up the war reporting and maybe trot the stable out to the pasture and shoot Modo right there in front of the whole staff to show them you're not fooling around

In my opinion, you've become shamlessly biased political lackeys, gender equality absolutists, gay fashion ideologues...but aside from that, please just take off your tiny ideological goggles, take a breath, get on the internet and report the news and quit moralizing.

Althouse, because I love to get a rise out of the girls, I'm going to elaborate on your personal dilemma.

Gay son... blue collar husband.

This is dragging you in two directions.

The blue collar husband thing is causing you to question the man hating BS that you learned from the feminists when you were a kid in Manhattan. Probably also causing you to question the BS history of white male privilege.

The gay kid thing keeps you in the "we ought to give gays whatever they say they want so they'll be happy" camp. That's just another kind of loyalty.

Not unusual. Women commonly espouse feminism and play the fag hag when they're single, particularly in cities like NY. When they have kids, especially male kids, and move to the suburbs, they often become Republicans overnight.

So, on a personal level, you're torn between obedience to the religion, and heretical thoughts. Which will win out? Or will you continue in confusion?

Politico:"Two people who spoke to Weiner privately said he had suggested that, as one said, “he took or sent a photo or photos like this at some point ...”

So, Weiner is coming clean now and having his anonymous damage control team admit to reporters that he has a pattern and practice of flashing young girls his erect penis on the internet.

He now admits that he has, many times in the past, sent obscenely lewd photographs of his erect penis to young girls on the internet.

This is a mental disorder. It's called "exhibitionism" or "flashing." Weiner has an official sexual disorder long recognized by mental health professionals.

What Is Exhibitionism:Exhibitionism is a sexual disorder. People with this disorder are sexually aroused by showing their sexual organs to others. People who have this disorder may masturbate while they expose themselves, but do not usually try to touch their victims.

If you have this mental health sickness, you can get help here:

http://goo.gl/zP6Q3

Anthony Weiner needs help. He is sick with a known sexual disorder that can be treated.

But not if everyone keeps enabling his sickness by "protecting" him.

We need to call the hospital.

Anthony Weiner needs a doctor.

Anthony Weiner needs to be admitted.

Even Anthony Weiner deserves treatment. The best doctors forced insurance mandates can buy.

He should be treated like any other mental defective - with medicine or perhaps electroshock therapy.

Hmmm... hard to wage a propaganda campaign when the other side has all of the propaganda outlets. That is what mainstream media means if it means anything. What do they have going against them? A single TV channel and a bunch of people sitting around in their pajamas swapping opinions.

And yet they feel besieged. I guess the only thing I can say to that is... GOOD! The biased bastards deserve it.

Jill is now paying for all of the past sins of the paper she had the bad judgment to worship when there was no access to dissenting opinions.

Oh, what dumbheads. Everyone would be done talking about this by now if they'd left it alone. I particularly enjoy the contrast between the religious insistence that what's in the Times is the "absolute truth" and this absurdly clumsy effort to generate an acceptable truth by editing.

ST...You know it's not mutually exclusive to love a good man who respects you and at the same time to treat gay folks as entitled to love and respect. That is less difficult than to postulate that those two categories must always be at war. Men can still be men, it just takes a little more effort.

I do need to get around to setting that up. Honest and for true, though. Still up from a marathon SISI session messing with the new CQ (very clunky so far) and such. Still haven't been able to get a GM move me down to the FN area.

You are correct, GM. Hoft it is. Typo on my part. Swing on through. I'll set up a meet at the only place you'd want to be anyway. At the Hooters in Union Station. Under the shadow of the Arch and overlooking the horrible overpriced and overdressed Hard Rock Cafe.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.Abramson/Isaiah 55:8-9_

Fen - sometimes I wonder. In this case the pope analogy is obvious. But, there are programs that scan the Internet for nuggets of information and terms in order to discover what the topic of the day is. I found one of these when checking Sitemeter once.

Shmoos are from Al Capp's comic strip, Lil Abner. Someone my age, 60, had plenty of years to read Lil Abner. Johah Goldberg was 10 when Al Capp died. Yes, he could have read Lil Abner, or seen it in his studies, but the odds are less likely and the coincidence intriguing.

MadisonMan jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is the NYT?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him---you and I. All of us are his murdochers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea of ink? Who gave us the crumpled wad of paper to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this anchor from its mores? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all Sun's? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infine nothing? Do we not feel the tweets of empty cyberspace? Has the globe not become colder instead of warmer? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to kindle lights in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the blogdiggers who are burying the NYT? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Newspapers, too, decompose. The NYT is dead. The NYT remains dead. And we have killed it.

You are correct, GM. Hoft it is. Typo on my part. Swing on through. I'll set up a meet at the only place you'd want to be anyway

Almost made it to St Louis last month for a conference. I have some business in St Louis, I'll contact you next time I make it down. I just looked for a train btw Chicago and St Louis - $24 and a 5 hour trip. Not too bad actually. I could actually get some work done on the way, and not have to get x rayed or groped.

As a child she may have perceived it as the absolute truth, but as an adult now she knows the limitations of news, but sadly given the spate of propaganda against the MSM, feels she has to retract that statement.

Come on guys, you can let this one go! "the spate of progpaganda against the MSM"? Roesch-Voltaire obviously doesn't understand that the central source of propaganda in any society is the media! That's how propaganda works! Jill Abramson, the editor of the most-read newspaper in the world is afraid of criticism and backlash? Welcome to the job.

She sits down with a friendly reporter in a planned interview, makes the statement that her paper was like a religion for her in her youth, fully aware it is going to be printed. Then when people call her out on the stupidity of her statement, she doesn't even respond to it she just deletes it. Oh the power of being editor at the NY Times. You get to define reality however you want to.

The NYT's editors would never try to delete a quote from the print edition, because they know once it is published it is on record. But the smartest people on Earth, Manhattan, elitist, liberals, don't realize the same thing applies to the internet.

@Penny: My dad used to work for Madison Newspapers Inc. as a printer. They published both the Capital Times and The Wisconsin State Journal, even though both had distinctly different news editors, reporters, and especially editorial views.

He'd bring home both papers every night and read them both. Other families would get just one or the other. As a boy, I asked him once why he did that and he told me that he wanted to get both sides of every story.

I've never looked up to single news source as the gospel truth ever since.